Hi! I am a Kindred main since they came out. They were my favourite champion instantly, and they allowed me to get out of silver, and right into plat, and now carried me into diamond. Now i am climbing in flex and speedrunning soloQ platinum (just had a 13 game winstreak) with a solid 70% winrate (last 30days), check out my League of graphs page! Currently i have 887,774 Mastery points on Kindred

Press the attack Press the attack is the best keystone for Kindred jungle. It gives nice early damage, amplifies your teammates damage, so it helps you secure kills on ganks, also helps to burst down enemy hypercarries faster (if you can proc it on them) in teamfights, and it stays relevant throughout the game. Conqueror can be taken in some rare scenarios, but taking this means you sacrifice some valuable early power in exchange for better scaling. Conqueror can be stacked very fast with your Dance of arrows (Q) and Wolf's frenzy (W), also your ult ( Lamb's respite) allows you to stack it to full. The latter is kinda always the excuse others use for taking Kindred with Conqueror, which i think is BS, i'd rather not use my ult only to have time to stack my keystone, when i can just have Press the attack, while Conqueror can end up just literally unused sometimes.

Triumph Triumph is the only viable option in this line, the restored % missing health can help clutch fights and the extra gold20 gold can add up quite a bit, for example, it will fund the Control wards

Alacrity Alacrity gives attack speed which is a nice stat on Kindred, you want to choose this most of the time. Can be swapped for Bloodline as it will provide more value later once it stacks up and it really boosts your survivability. In rare scenarios, when there are much high CC threats in the enemy team, Tenacity can be viable too.

Coup de grace Coup de grace synergize well with your Mounting dread (E) execute damage, and the 8% extra damage is nice against targets with <40% HP left. Last stand is viable too as it synergizes well with your Lamb's respite (R).

Sudden impact Sudden impact has the most value in domination, as your Dance of arrows (Q) will proc it very often.

Ravenous hunter Ravenous hunter now gives a nice bit of Omnivamp. This applies to all your autoattacks and abilities and will provide a great bit of survivability. Right now i think it outshines Relentless hunter/Sorcery secondary, and people Master+ take it on Kindred too.

This is the reason why you scale super hardcore into lategame. Each stack amplify your basic abilities:

Q - Dance of Arrows: Bonus attack speed increased by an additional 5% per stack.
W - Wolf's Frenzy: Current health damage increased by an additional 0.5% per stack.
E - Mounting Dread: Missing health damage increased by an additional 0.5% per stack.

You can mark enemy champions, which will activate after 8 seconds, and if you kill the target or assist in its death, you gain a mark, and you can't target that champion for 4 minutes

You will passively mark enemy jungle camps. After 40 seconds of having no active jungle mark, you will get a mark on a jungle camp for 3 minutes.

0 Marks: Scuttle
1-3 Marks: Scuttle/Raptor/Gromp
4-7 Marks: Red/Blue/Krug/Wolves
8+ Marks: Herald/Baron/Drakes

If you kill a marked target or assists in their death, you gain a mark. Your basic attacks and Mounting Dread (E) gain 75 range at 4 stacks, plus 25 range every 3 stacks after.

Tips:

DO NOT DIE FOR MARKS!

When you begin to play Kindred, this ability is easily forgotten. You should always have a target marked as soon as you can mark someone, unless you want to reserve it for some mindgames.

Always mark the enemy jungler in the beginning of the game. You will meet him first most likely, if you invade him, or he invades you. It does not matter if you two do not meet, or you don't get the mark from him, after taking the first buff you will already be able to mark a new target.

You do not have to greed for marks. You just have to play like a jungler. Having 4 marks is kinda crucial, as you get the +75 attack range, but they are not that hard to get. Everything 4+ is a nice bonus.

I personally only go for marks when they are free, or when i know i can cheese it from the enemy jungler mostly unpunished. But you really do not have to focus on getting jungle marks, you better just gank instead. For example if you have a mark on the topside jungle, and have no info from the enemy jungler, or you know he had just recalled, you can assume he will be near that mark, so you can gank botlane and/or go for a drake. This is mostly true when you are against junglers like Evelynn, as they want to sequence their camps efficiently in the early game to maximize XP gain and reach their power spikes asap.

If your mark dissapears from the map, it means someone have taken it 10 seconds ago, so this is a good way to get an idea where the enemy jungler may be.

If a jungle camp is marked, you only have to kill the big guy to gain the mark (like wolves/raptors/krugs

You do not have to get the kill on an enemy champion/herald/baron/drake/junge camps to gain the mark. So basically if anything is marked, you will get the stack if you assist in it's death, and your team kills it. I love this, because at first, you had to get the killing blow on the jungle camps, and my teammates almost always took it from me like there is no tomorrow.

When you are planning on ganking a lane, you can bait an enemy to ward the river (if they have not already warded it, but you have Oracles right?), where you will be waiting for them.



You jump in the target direction, and gain 25%(+5%/mark) attack speed for 4 seconds, and fire up to 3 arrows when you land on the 3 nearest targets.
If you cast Wolf's Frenzy or dash inside it, it's cooldown will reduce to 4 / 3.5 / 3 / 2.5 / 2 seconds.
This is your main kiting tool, or gapcloser when you are chasing down targets.

Tips:

When ganking/engaging someone, do not use it right away if you can just walk up (enemy overextended, or have not noticed you in time, or your laner can CC the enemy), so you can use it later when you have to chase, or jump away for example when a Renekton thinks you are the double buff delivery guy, or you know you will have to dodge some nasty CC like Ahri's charm or Xerath's E. You should use it right away if you are sure you just murder the enemy's face mostly unpunished, or they won't be able to respond until your next Q, as it will have less then 4 seconds cooldown due to your Wolf's frenzy (W), or when you have to close the gap asap and apply the slow from your Mounting dread (E).

You can jump walls. More info down below on the jumpable walls section with images.

Q into W, to maximize the cooldown reduction you get while being in your Wolf's frenzy (W) zone.

Always try to cast this ability between two basic attacks to maximize your damage output.

You can do an animation cancel by casting this where you currently stand after an autoattack. This will rarely have use, but nice to know.

If you jump the drake/baron pit, your Q will not fire an arrow to the drake/baron/herald if you do not have vision there when you start jumping.

If you jump into a wall, without hopping it, you will get a quick small glimpse of the other side of the wall. For example you can check the bushes at blue buff this way, but this is rarely useful.

When an enemy wants to escape with a blastcone, you can jump on their side of the cone so they end up being dog food.

If you are being chased down, and you are sure the enemy has flash too, jump a wall, then flash back. It is very unlikely that you can pull this off, but when you do, it is montageworthy and your team will ask questions like "is this korea?".



Passive: Basically Fleet footwork without gaining movement speed. When charged, you heal for up to 49-100 (at levels 1-18) based on your missing health %.

Active: You separate wolf from yourself, placing down a 800 unit radius zone. Wolf attacks nearby enemies, prioritizing your target. Wolf ignores unit collision. Also it says it ignores terrain collision, but he does not move through walls like Kayn, wolf goes around walls, but if he can't he will awkwardly get to the target after some struggle. You will see when you try to chain Red buff&krugs.

Wolf's basic attacks deal 25 / 30 / 35 / 40 / 45 (+0.2 per bonus AD) (+1.5% (+1% per Mark) of target's current health) magic damage and scale with 25% of your bonus attack speed. Wolf deals 50% bonus damage against monsters.

If you leave the zone, this ability ends immediately.

Tips:

This ability is often ignored, by the enemy team, and by beginner Kindred players. Well, this bad boy deals an a*load of damage. You always want to have this ability up when you engage in a fight.

Deals % current health magic damage, which means it helps a lot melting tanks, but it is just as good in dealing damage to squishies too, and the magic damage makes it less efficient for the enemies to just stack armor against you.

You can position this ability a little bit off, so try to think ahead when casting, and place it where you will be most likely moving in the future, so you do not walk out of it prematurely and it keeps lowering your Q cooldowns and dishing out its damage for more time.

Wolf grants vision, so you can check bushes/the other side of the walls with this ability (if you place it on the other side of the wall). Can be super useful when you want to steal a drake/baron, or you are just suspicious about the early game Warwick who went too quiet. 300 gold + a drake.

Sometimes wolf is not willing to attack the scuttle. Super annoying. I usually Q into W when starting scuttle, and wolf attacks the scuttle like 50-60% of the time. If you cast W first while having vision of the scuttle, and you did not attack the scuttle or did anything to it, Wolf will attack it 100%.

If you are superfed and have 8-10+ stacks, Wolf can literally 1v1 a weaker enemy. Nice BM.



You shoot a projectile at the target unit, which slows them by 50% for 1 seconds, and apply Dread for 4 seconds. Your next 2 autoattacks refresh Dread's duration. On the third attack, you yeet wolf at the enemy instead of an arrow, dealing 80 / 100 / 120 / 140 / 160 (+0.8 per bonus AD) (+ 8% (+0.5% per Mark) of target's missing health) bonus physical damage. Percentage damage is capped at 300 vs. monsters.

This critically strikes if the target is below 15% health for 50% (+0.5% × bonus critical damage) bonus damage. Threshold increased by 0.5% health per 1% critical strike chance (up to 65% health at 100% crit chance.

This ability is basically an execute, as it deals more damage the less % HP your target has. Also this helps your ganks and kiting a lot with the slow.

Nice synergy with Press the attack, as your 3rd auto will proc PTA and this abilities extra damage as well, and it gets the bonus vulnerability damage from PTA. Also have nice synergy with Coup de grace.

Tips:

When ganking, only use this right ahead when your laner can not CC the enemy first, and the enemy is starting to get too far away. Otherwise, you want your laner to CC the enemy first, get some damage on him, and use it then, so you chain your CC's and get the most damage out of this ability as it deals more damage the less % HP your target has.

This ability's cast range is always the same as your autoattack range.

While clearing camps, do not use it right away, as it will deal more damage the less HP the jungle monster has, so it makes your clear faster, saves time of maybe 2-3+ autoattacks which is nice. Later in the game you can use it right away on camps, as you will just 3-shot all of them.

You can extend your smite range with this ability. For example, when you go for an early drake around LVL 5-7, place this on to the dragon around 1.150-1300 HP (~1300 when your teammates are helping you, if not, less), and when you launch your 3rd attack, smite the dragon just right before it hits, this way your smite is like 880-1000 instead of 480. Takes some practice, and varies at all stages of the game, but if you master it you will not be outsmited. And always take into note, that sometimes using E on the enemy jungler or just an enemy who tries to contest the current objective is simply just better than showing off how big of a smiteologyst you are.

You can cancel its pretty long animation by casting Q right after, or casting this while mid-air with your Q. I use this ability like this 90% of the time. If you have to cast it while you do not have Q, squeeze it between two basic attacks.



You create a zone for 4 seconds, where nothing can die. If anything reaches 10% of their maximum health, it's health is locked at that value until the zone ends. No damage and no healing. At the end, everything inside the zone is healed for 250 / 325 / 400.

This ability is a gamechanger, and it can be just as valuable for the enemy team as for your team. If you do it right, your team will praise you, if you do it wrong, you better just /mute all if not already.

Tips:

If you are just starting Kindred, you will F this up big time. Even professional Kindred players F it up sometimes. Don't worry about it, with some practice you will understand how and when to use this ability.

Best tip is, when you are not sure if you should use this ability, just don't. Use it greedily, only for yourself.

Always take into account what the enemies can do when your ult ends, and what your team can do when your ult ends. For example: Neeko, Nunu, Galio, Taric. Think about this at loading screen, and when the skirmishing/teamfighting happens.

Always take into account who can kick out who from your ult. For example: Lee sin, Janna, Tristana.

If someone on your team is clearly getting business done (e.g. hypercarries), you should use this to save them, unless you can do the same work as him and/or he's in a bad position.

DO NOT SAVE ENEMY CARRIES/HYPERCARRIES if they are in danger zone, or enemies at all if you don't have to.

Under your turrets it is OK to use this ability when you are at least 60-70% sure, but try to wait until the low HP enemies die, unless you need life saving asap.

If you are dying, but your team is winning the teamfight, sometimes you just better die and let your team clean up instead of saving enemies.

If you are caught in the jungle, and you are being killed, ult. If there is a wall at the edge of your ult, or your ult overlaps with a wall, you are GTG. Enemies will often think that you will not leave your ult until it ends, because why would you, right? You can pull off a surprise escape, if you leave your ult before it ends. This will mostly just work when you have walls nearby and/or you have flash up. Against a champion like Camille this will not really work, unless his gapcloser is on cooldown, so take that into consideration. Also before you try to pull this off, make sure you do not have some DOT (e.g. Ignite, Toxic shot). Otherwise you just wait until your R ands, and jump right at the end, this way you get the heal, and you instantly dissappear. With some practice it is not hard to make some grand escapes, but you just better not get into situations like that.

Lamb's respite (R) is a nice tool for diving. Feel free to do it whenever you feel like it, just make sure the enemy will die before you have to ult, and they themselves have no invulnerability like Tryndamere, Kayle, or you can end up in a really awkward situation. Sometimes you will have to ult before the enemies die, on that case you want to walk to the turret attack range after taking turret aggro and you are on low HP, ult, tank 1-2 more turret shots and let your teammate(s) finish the dive.

When you end up in a close fight, or you are getting killed (this applies to mostly small skirmishes or 1v1 duels), you can turn it around by ulting, then getting the enemy low, applying Mounting dread (E) to your target and getting your 3rd execute auto ready, then wait until your ult ends and AA them. This is almost always a guaranteed kill, and this way you will win most duels/skirmishes. Unless they can stun or displace you at the end, or Yi. We hate Yi.

If you do not have smite up, or the enemy has champions like Nunu or Cho'gath, or you are behind 1-2 levels, or you are just not confident that you win the smite battle, you can ult the current objective (Baron/Drake/Herald), the enemy will (very likely) waste its smite on it, and it's an even smite battle at the end, but most likely he will just die, because your team is taking the current objective, so i can assume you have the numbers advantage.
On the other way around if you want to be flashy, you can jump in to pretend you want to steal the objective, ult it, enemy wastes its smite, you jump back out, then you jump back in when your ult ends (your ult heals the Baron/Herald/Drake too), steal it, then flash out/jump back. Mostly flash. Hard to pull off, especially when you just end up oneshotted and/or cc'd, but you will be officially Korean if you do it once, and it is montageworthy.

If you ult, and Mordekaiser ults you, your ult will not exist in the Death realm, and you can die there. If you ult in the death realm, your ult will stay there.

Urgot can not execute enemies with his ult in your ult, but he can drag them out with it if he just walks out in time.

If an enemy turret is low, and you have 1-2 minions remaining only, you can ult to save the minion(s) long enough to take the tower. Just consider if it's worth it, and look the map where the next wave is. You can also save the herald & maybe even squeeze out another charge of it on a turret. Your ult does not make towers invulnerable.

If the enemy nexus is open, you can ping your teammates to focus it, and your whole team can have an extra 4 seconds of free damage on the enemy nexus if you ult. This way you can possibly end a game with skipping a teamfight which you could not win.
The other way around, when the enemy is targeting your nexus, you do not really want to ult if it means you save any of the enemies, it is just better to sacrifice yourself or a teammate for your nexus, right?

In the current meta, games usually end around 25 minutes. This means you want to put yourself on the map as soon as possible, just like the enemy jungler.
I like Kindred because they can be powerful in the early game, just like at all stages of the game, with scaling to late super nicely, and this means if you can't get a lead in early game by ganking, powerfarming is still a safe option most of the time.
Keep in mind, the game starts at the lobby, not at 01:30.

At the loading screen you should ***es the matchups, look for lanes which you can gank easily and which you can not. Easily gankable lanes mean your laner has some reliable CC. Hard to gank lanes can be identified by opponents having good escape tools like (le blancLe blanc or Morgana and/or your laner has no reliable CC or CC at all (like Kassadin. You can also look for melee vs. ranged matchups and melee vs. melee matchups. This is important, because you will adjust your early jungle pathing accordingly.

Picking lanes to gank

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This scenario is simple&straightforward. You want to gank the lane which has reliable CC, as it is always almost a guaranteed kill, but at least a burned Flash. Try to gank and get ahead all your easily gankable teammates as well as yourself as soon as possible.
If one/all of your easily gankable lanes is losing/lost, or they are kinda incompetent, if you have a winning lane, try to get that laner more ahead & help him take the turret (Herald OP) so he can help you to help that lane & snowball the game.

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In this scenario, you want to look for your best shot and camp that lane. You will mostly look for not reliable/weak CC which you can make easier to hit with your E slow, or for melee vs. ranged matchups, or for your teammate who has the best snowball potential.

Melee vs. ranged matchups mean the ranged champion has the upper hand & can poke his excelsior.
-If you have a ranged laner vs. a melee laner you can dive that lane easily, or if the enemy laner pushes up/overextends he will mostly be defenseless against 2 ranged champions (you & your laner).
-If you have a melee laner vs. a ranged laner means he will get poked and he is possibly diveable. You can play around this by simply ganking when the enemy ranged laner overextends (check your laners HP and see if he can help, if not, be sure you can duel the laner and the enemy jungler is not around, also don't do this in a huge minion wave), or if your melee laner is currently diveable (wave under turret, or crashing soon or enemy slowpushing into turret & preferably he is under ~70-80% HP) means the enemy jungler will most likely want to dive him. If you track the enemy jungler correctly, or you just can safely assume that he is on that side of the map, prepare to ****block them and turn the whole thing around with your ult (or even without your ult).

Melee vs. melee matchups are volatile, and they will trade for sure, so always check the HP's when you are near that lane or planning to be there soon.

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This happens. You would think this is the worst scenario, but actually this is good too. Your only job here is to powerfarm and take objectives, but most importantly, F up the enemy jungler as hard as you can. Track him, pretend where he will gank, be there, invade his jungle&if you can just straight up murder him (be sure that you have lane prio near, and he won't get help in time), steal camps, for example if he ganked bot and you are topside, just leave whatever you are doing and steal his topside camps (if you can be at least 60-70% sure that they are up). Take all raptors, kill only the big krug. This way the raptors will respawn, but the krugs won't until it is cleared so his topside camps will not be up at the same time, making his time spent there innefficient for the next 3-4 minutes.
You basically want to be as much as a nuisance you can be, so in the worst case you stall the game until you&your team scales and win the game after.

Change your plan according to the state of the game & try to take all opportunities to get a lead / an objective.